Part 62 (1/2)
”Iris,” he said, ”how long is this to continue?”
”This--what?”
”This life--this miserable solitude and silence.”
”Till we die,” she replied. ”What else do you expect? You have sold our freedom, and we must pay the price.”
”No; it shall end. I will end it. I can endure it no longer.”
”You are still young. You will perhaps have forty years more to live--all like this--as dull and empty. It is the price we must pay.”
”No,” he repeated, ”it shall end. I swear that I will go on like this no longer.”
”You had better go to London and walk in Piccadilly to get a little society.”
”What do you care what I do or where I go?”
”We will not reproach each other, Harry.”
”Why--what else do you do all day long but reproach me with your gloomy looks and your silence?”
”Well--end it if you can. Find some change in the life.”
”Be gracious for a little, and listen to my plan. I have made a plan.
Listen, Iris. I can no longer endure this life. It drives me mad.”
”And me too. That is one reason why we should not desire to change it.
Mad people forget. They think they are somewhere else. For us to believe that we were somewhere else would be in itself happiness.”
”I am resolved to change it--to change it, I say--at any risk. We will leave Louvain.”
”We can, I dare say,” Iris replied coldly, ”find another town, French or Belgian, where we can get another cottage, behind high walls in a garden, and hide there.”
”No. I will hide no longer. I am sick of hiding.”
”Go on. What is your plan? Am I to pretend to be some one else's widow?”
”We will go to America. There are heaps of places in the States where no English people ever go---neither tourists nor settlers--places where they have certainly never heard of us. We will find some quiet village, buy a small farm, and settle among the people. I know something about farming. We need not trouble to make the thing pay. And we will go back to mankind again. Perhaps, Iris--when we have gone back to the world--you will--” he hesitated--”you will be able to forgive me, and to regard me again with your old thoughts. It was done for your sake.”
”It was not done for my sake. Do not repeat that falsehood. The old thoughts will never come back, Harry. They are dead and gone. I have ceased to respect you or myself. Love cannot survive the loss of self-respect. Who am I that I should give love to anybody? Who are you that you should expect love?”
”Will you go with me to America--love or no love? I cannot stay here--I will not stay here.”
”I will go with you wherever you please. I should like not to run risks. There are still people whom it would pain to see Iris Henley tried and found guilty with two others on a charge of fraudulent conspiracy.”
”I wouldn't accustom myself, if I were you, Iris, to speak of things too plainly. Leave the thing to me and I will arrange it. See now, we will travel by a night train from Brussels to Calais. We will take the cross-country line from Amiens to Havre; there we will take boat for New York--no English people ever travel by the Havre line. Once in America we will push up country--to Kentucky or somewhere--and find that quiet country place: after that I ask no more. I will settle down for the rest of my life, and have no more adventures. Do you agree, Iris?”
”I will do anything that you wish,” she replied coldly.
”Very well. Let us lose no time. I feel choked here. Will you go into Brussels and buy a Continental Bradshaw or a Baedeker, or something that will tell us the times of sailing, the cost of pa.s.sage, and all the rest of it? We will take with us money to start us with: you will have to write to your bankers. We can easily arrange to have the money sent to New York, and it can be invested there--except your own fortune--in my new name. We shall want no outfit for a fortnight at sea. I have arranged it all beautifully. Child, look like your old self.” He took an unresisting hand. ”I want to see you smile and look happy again.”